The Time Has Come for a Sustainable Education
A simple definition of sustainability refers to “a set of conditions and trends in a given system that can continue indefinitely” Atkisson (2012). It relates to interdependent systems of cause and effect between socio-economic, environmental, cultural and political activity around the world. Sustainability “thinking” refers to the capacity to make connections and find enduring solutions which will allow the organisation to “continue indefinitely”. Sustainability becomes a connecting concept, a common ground which can help us to both understand the interconnectedness of problems and point the way to solutions that do the same.
Climate Change expert Professor Johann Rockström talked of sustainability being “at a renaissance moment”. If Covid-19 has served a significant positive purpose, then perhaps it is to illuminate the extent to which we are all connected, interdependent, fragile and ultimately, to remind us what it means to be human, with all our fallibilities, fears and endless hope. According to Rockstroem and Will Day of the Cambridge Institute of Sustainability Leadership, we have ten years to address the chronic emissions issues that threaten, nay, are about to, to put our planet into terminal decline. Unless we change the way do things immediately, then we will soon, have tipped over the tipping point. This is an imperative for us all to begin to change.
The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a framework for action. We will all have to make material sacrifices. We will all have to change the way we do things. What does this mean for an education sector? What should our priorities be?
If sustainability is “at a renaissance moment” then so is education. As a key part of the system, the education sector needs to reflect hard, and fast, on its priorities: on what the experience of teaching and learning provides for young people: on the “where, what, how and why” of education, as well as the standards it sets in terms of its culture, leadership and role-modelling, in pursuit of a better, more peaceful, more sustainable world. Now is the time to re-imagine, reconsider, re-think, and reboot how a vision of the future can be nurtured by an experience of education.
Where? Think “outside the building”. At this time our experience of moving teaching and learning online has if anything, accelerated a dynamic that was already underway. Arguably the time for dependence on “bricks and mortar” is coming to an end. A classroom is no longer confined to and defined by walls and rows of seats. And in the meantime, it seems like a good to undertake a “Sustainability Audit” of existing infrastructure. Becoming carbon negative, as school bursars should be able to tell you, potentially means an additional income stream.
What? Applying sustainability thinking entails ensuring that human beings are at the heart of systems, structures, policies and procedures. K-12 education has generally been divided into “curriculum” (sub-divided by an assortment of disciplines) and “extra-curricular” with associated value judgments, i.e. what happens in a classroom is more important than learning than happens outside, a preconception bolstered by assessment systems. The link between formal education and a vision of the future has become increasingly tenuous. Sustainability thinking in ecosystems considers, understands and is ready to respond to the entire web of relationships: it involves a whole community. Sustainability thinking does not entail the evisceration of learning in disciplines. On the contrary, it means evolving, by becoming interdisciplinary, emphasizing the importance of making connections, exploring the relationships between disciplines, and learning about the world in ways that reach beyond the scope of individual disciplines. Interdisciplinary, connected thinking becomes a habit of the synthesizing mind. Sustainability, in its broadest sense, is the moral purpose that informs process as much as measurements of success. It is a means not just to survive but to thrive.
How? Teaching and Learning. Covid-19 has accelerated the move towards a reconstituted balance between online and face-to-face learning. Now is probably not the time, to be investing in new buildings. If we are really interested in anticipating the future and preparing as best we can for it, then we might consider grounding the experience of education we offer students in the Sustainable Development Goals, creating a shared understanding of sustainability and appreciation for the interconnectivity of systems thinking and practice. Motivation needs to become intrinsic, rather than extrinsic, student led, teacher guided, with relative content organised to ensure young people emerge with both the knowledge and skills to thrive and to allow others to do the same.
Why? Moral purpose. Schools need a prophetic vision of the future that considers the dark clouds of the climate change crisis looming large on the horizon. The Sustainable Development Goals exist for a reason. The result of focussed, organised, inspired collaboration over time by experts from vital and interconnected sectors around the globe, they can be regarded as a pinnacle of human hope. Let us hope they are not the last vestige. Their achievement is something that is down to us all.
The place of visionary speculation is central to ideas about education. What does our dream for education look like? What is your vision of humanity that you seek to nurture?
References
Alan Atkisson (2012). “The ISIS Agreement: How Sustainability Can Improve Organizational Performance and Transform the World”